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Sarah Palin Slams Obama for Wanting to "Bankrupt the Coal Industry"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZjDx...yfourthestate/
Yesterday, a ten month old audio clip and video of Sen. Barack Obama in front of an editorial board in San Fransisco made it’s way onto the internet, thanks largely in part to the Illinois senator’s comments about coal.

"What I've said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else's out there," Obama said in a Jan. 17 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle.

"I was the first to call for a 100 percent auction on the cap and trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases emitted would be charged to the polluter," Obama continued. "That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants that are being built, that they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted down caps that are being placed, imposed every year.

"So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted."

"The only thing I've said with respect to coal, I haven't been some coal booster," Obama said in the San Francisco Chronicle interview. "What I have said is that for us to take coal off the table as an ideological matter as opposed to saying if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it."

The West Virginia Record is reporting that the senior vice president of the West Virginia Coal Association called Obama's comments "unbelievable."

"His comments are unfortunate," Chris Hamilton said Sunday to the Record, "and really reflect a very uninformed voice and perspective to coal specifically and energy generally."

Hamilton pointed out in his interview that both Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, have made “seemingly anti-coal statements.”

"In Ohio recently, when Joe Biden said 'not here' about building coal-fired power plants -- this is exactly what will happen," Hamilton said. "Financing won't be directed here. It will all go aboard for plants elsewhere in the world. The United Sates is importing more coal today from Indonesia, South Africa and Colombia than we ever have.

Sarah Palin was pretty fired-up over the newly unearthed Obama comments, saying to a crowd at Marietta College that her ticket would not let that happen to the coal industry.